Read "An Englishman Looks at the World" by H.G. Wells online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
(_July, 1909_.)
The telephone bell rings with the petulant persistence that marks a trunk call, and I go in from some ineffectual gymnastics on the lawn to deal with the irruption. There is the usual trouble in connecting up, minute voices in Folkestone and Dover and London call to one another and are submerged by buzzings and throbbings. Then in elfin tones the real message comes through: "Blériot has crossed the Channel. An article . about what it means."